I can't help but wonder if it would be worth it (for self driving) to have cameras at the very front of the car that look left and right. Unprotected turns would be easier and safer, and it could eliminate over five feet of creeping.
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Left-Looking & Right-Looking Cameras at Very Front?
- Thread starter PianoAl
- Start date
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Oh definitely. Most AVs have something like that for that very reason.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
How can a safety driver check if the turn is safe if the system initiates maneuvers based on these cameras?
It seems the car should try emulate the perception of the driver when doing unprotected lefts. It should still creep enough for the safety driver to verify.
It seems the car should try emulate the perception of the driver when doing unprotected lefts. It should still creep enough for the safety driver to verify.
Good points.
1. It would be scary when the car can see things you can't.
2. It's actually a little like that now when changing lanes and the repeaters can see into your blind spot.
3. It might help if the view from those cameras were displayed on the screen.
maybe A pillar then? Cameras on B pillar that can see LESS than safety driver means it's handicapped compared to a human
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
Yes. The obvious place would be forward and side facing on A pillar. This would also allow the car to see around stopped vehicles like the driver can.
This has come up many times. I have advocated for the idea of cameras as part of the headlight modules, which could solve some of the problems of retrofitting an improved hardware suite into existing vehicles. (I think, however, that such a significant retrofit is unlikely to happen.)
And BTW it's not only for side-facing cameras for left and right turns, though that's a major benefit. Another benefit would be forward-looking cameras at the corners or A-pillars that would have a better angle to see past vehicles and obstructions when initiating a turn across traffic. A very common scenario is turning left from a left-turn bay, when there are cars in the opposite direction turn bay blocking your view of the high-speed oncoming traffic you have to cross. Even more so than with the side-facing B-pillar cameras, the view angle of the present forward-facing cameras is worse than the human driver's view.
Though as I said above, I'm not optimistic that Tesla would add corner cameras for new or for retrofit purposes, I think that another solution could be multiple or omnidirectional cameras in the existing repeater camera location. Looking forward, these could see down the side of the car with a somewhat better angle than the driver inside. Looking sideways, the repeaters are already forward of the door hinge which is an improvement on the B-pillar location. Another variant of this possibility is to move the repeater camera up a bit, to where the present window mirrors are located. Even if the requirement for conventional mirrors eventually goes away, it's not a bad location for a camera cluster.
If I were planning it from scratch though, I would use the corners, probably all four corners, for important AV cameras. These have the best angle of view when creeping forward, (or backwards out of a parking spot). The corners are also better for parking cameras to maneuver the car confidently and avoid curbs, debris, wayward toddlers etc.
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Daniel in SD
(supervised)
It will be very interesting to see camera placement on robotaxi model this Friday.
Cybertruck prototypes all have same placement as current models?
Cybertruck prototypes all have same placement as current models?
I think part of the issue in this would be a change in camera configuration with the way the system is trained etc, I believe adding more cameras would require fresh new training data and/or fusing together what already existed with new camera feeds and making decisions based on those feeds
Not sure exactly how big of a step back it would be in terms of training and how much rework would be required, but any change in camera positioning is a big deal as I understand it
Not sure exactly how big of a step back it would be in terms of training and how much rework would be required, but any change in camera positioning is a big deal as I understand it
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